5 Best Project Management Game Simulators to Sharpen Your Skills
- Leia Emeera
- Jun 21, 2024
- 9 min read
Updated: Jan 23
Playing games and project management; two topics that you don’t really expect to go together, but this is what this article is about. If you’re looking for a fun way to learn real-world concepts of project management in a simulated environment, or you want to find games to reference topics on managing, you’ve landed in the right spot.
There are many ways to learn about project management and get familiar with a project manager's role. Skill sets such as leadership, adaptability, budgeting, risk, and resource management can be learned not only through books or written materials, but you can also learn from movies and even playing video games.
So, if you aim to be a project manager, you can start by trying out these 5 project management video games that emulate the experience.
Table of Contents
What Are Project Management Game Simulators?
Project management game simulators are virtual interactive environments that mimic the real-world concept of project management. It’s a safe space for individuals wanting to practice planning, executing, and managing projects to develop skills like resource management – risk-free!
Here are the benefits of playing project management games:
Improve decision-making with strategic thinking and decision-making under a limited timeframe.
Foster adaptability in mitigating risks by learning to identify and assess potential bottlenecks.
Bridging theory and practice with a simulated environment that has real-world applications.
5 Best Project Management Video Games to Play
SimCity
Initial release date: February 2nd, 1989
Genre: Construction and Management Simulation, City-building
Platforms: -
Developers: Maxis, Tilted Mill Entertainment, Aspyr Media, Full Fat, Infogrames, Nintendo EAD, Babaroga, HAL Laboratory, Track Twenty
The Sims is a well-established franchise of life simulators, most known for the games where you create and control the daily lives of virtual people in the suburbs. However, the game that started it all was SimCity. Since its first game was released in 1989, multiple other SimCity games have been released since then, with the latest addition to the series being the 2014 mobile adaptation, SimCity BuildIt.
How exactly are the games reminiscent of project management? Across all SimCity games, the main objective is to create, develop, and maintain a city. This involves planning out infrastructure, ensuring resources are sufficiently managed and distributed, and maintaining balance across sectors to avoid bankruptcy.
It’s an intricate system—from the planning of transportation systems to fluctuating tax rates, individuals oversee what goes into their land. Unforeseen circumstances can occur, like natural disasters, that have to be put under control. When this is met with failure, it could reflect on the development of the city.
Just as projects can run into issues that cause bottlenecks, so can your city. Therefore, in a broad sense, SimCity is just a giant project. Players have to apply the same principles to manage their city as they would with a project: initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and controlling.
SimCity is now a classic where hardcore PM gamers return to this game to test their limits. Games of project management tend to be compared with the traits and features in this game, making it a benchmark for many modern project management games.
2. RollerCoaster Tycoon
Initial release date: March 31st, 1999
Genre: Construction and Management Simulation, Simulation
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox, macOS, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Android
Developers: Chris Sawyer, Chris Sawyer Productions, MicroProse
Similar to project management games like SimCity, RollerCoaster Tycoon is a series of construction and management simulators, but it differs in subject. Players are given a blank piece of land and free rein to build any type of amusement park they desire—which includes the customisation of roller coasters, down to their tracks. The first game was released in March 1999 and has been hailed as a classic ever since.
Players are responsible for modifying terrain, building facilities and attractions, hiring staff, and keeping customers happy—all with the money they start off with and continue to earn. In order for your park to be and stay successful, the management of resources should be planned wisely.
Players have to handle the maintenance of their built structures, as well as track the happiness and well-being of the independent NPCs of the park. Rides can be too dizzying or priced too high, upsetting customers. Like SimCity, even after your buildings are all built, you need to consistently supervise and maintain your creation to ensure its success.
It’s a test of balance, much like project management! In both circumstances, individuals must learn how to juggle creativity and practicality to achieve success. Planning without creativity lacks innovation, but creativity without planning could result in a project exceeding budget.
Another classic game where players are still posting the result of their rollercoaster management to this day. This game puts the thought into doing anything and everything in a project management game.
3. Frostpunk
Initial release date: April 24th, 2018
Genre: City-building, Strategy, Business Simulation, Action-Adventure
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now, Xbox One, Mac operating systems
Developer: 11 Bit Studios
Another project management game is Frostpunk, which is set in an alternate history, where players need to build and manage a city amidst an Earth that has frozen over. It’s a notoriously challenging game that has reached commercial success. Initially released in 2018, the game has been met with enough critical acclaim to earn itself a second game, set to be released in 2024.
In this video game project management theme, players must cultivate a city, not for commercial success, but with the end goal of survival. But survival is not enough to prevent a bad ending—you need to keep your people happy, or else you’ll be overthrown or killed by the citizens you have kept alive. To do this, players must manage resources like food and power or research on machinery to make processes more efficient.
However, unique to this list, Frostpunk has players tread the fine lines of in-game politics. The choices you make dictate whether your governing is militaristic or theocratic-leaning. Similarly, project management oftentimes forces managers to make tough decisions to meet collective goals in the grand scheme of things.
A project management game that adds an extra challenge for players. With the limited time placed in the game, it keeps players coming back to the game to see how far they can survive in the frost-bitten city.
4. Fallout Shelter
Initial release date: June 14th, 2015
Genre: Role-playing Game, Construction and Management Simulation, Simulation
Platforms: Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
Developer: Behaviour Interactive, Bethesda Game Studios
Most video games in the Fallout franchise are open-world action-adventure games. However, Fallout Shelter is especially different. This particular video game does not share the same story-driven system as its peers—it’s a free-to-play construction and management simulator.
In Fallout Shelter, players must build rooms in their vault for house dwellers, produce energy, filter water, and distribute food. This ant farm view game demands your 24/7 attention. As real time passes, even when the application is not open, resources can drain. To efficiently manage resources, players in this project management game must allocate vault dwellers to jobs according to their individual stats.
This idea is similar to how project management runs in reality. Resources aren’t limited to budgets, tools, or time—but people too. A team should consist of people with different skill sets who can cover their respective responsibilities effectively.
A different take compared to the other project management in this list. The focus is more on people-oriented management, so suited for players who want a taste of what it feels like to manage individuals.
5. Subnautica
Initial release date: December 16th, 2014
Genre: Action-Adventure, Survival
Platforms: macOS, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Developers: Unknown Worlds Entertainment, Shiny Shoe, Panic Button Games, Grip Digital
While this may be the most outlandish example in this list, Subnautica does comprise numerous aspects of project management. This game is an action-adventure survival game, set on an alien oceanic planet called 4546B. Players assume the role of a spaceship crash survivor and have the liberty to explore wrecks, deserted alien laboratories, islands, and countless aquatic biomes.
But it can be noted quite early in the game that the waters of 4546B are not as innocuous as they may first appear. Bonesharks, warpers, and diverse leviathans are scattered throughout the planet.
Much like a project, this video game has a clear progression path—but it is important to note that players are not forced to follow it and are allowed free rein on the planet. Circling back to the topic at hand, after enough exploration, players will soon realise that the local fauna are ailing with bacteria that they too are infected by, and the abandoned, yet advanced technology of the planet will not let them escape without a cure.
Therefore, the playthrough unfolds like so; create a vaccine, build a rocket, and escape. This must be done, all while coordinating the management of resources for the sake of survival.
While it’s not a traditional project management game, Subnautica is for players who want to learn about resource and risk management that are part of managing projects.
Skills You'll Develop from Playing Project Management Games
Time and Resource Management
The in-game resources like time, money, materials and personnel are typically finite in these project management games. So, to ensure that players can reach objectives while learning how to balance resources helps build skills in time management, budgeting and task prioritisation.
Risk Assessment and Problem-Solving
Project management games present a variety of obstacles that test players with scenarios and challenges that require them to think logically, analyse the issue and come up with a solution within the constraints of the game. Usually, games set these risks as a pattern so players would prepare backup plans to prevent them from happening.
Other Fun Ways to Develop Project Management Skills
Participating in online courses: There are several platforms online, like Coursera and Udemy, that offer project management courses that can help improve your skills further.
Apply to daily life: Treat personal tasks as a way enhance your project management skills. For example, when going on a trip with your friends or organising a family event, set these up with the principles and fundamentals of project management and see what structure does to your daily life.
Volunteer in your communities: When the community wants to host an event or start a project of their own, offer to manage these projects to gain experience, especially if you prefer a low-pressure environment to practice.
Making Project Management Easier with TESSR
Exploring project management games can be a fun way to learn about project management. But when you're juggling real projects, TESSR is here to make managing things easier.
TESSR is a creative project management software that helps animation studios, creatives, artists, and animators manage their projects, teams, and workflows smoothly. With real-time communication, task management, and collaboration tools, you can focus on what truly matters—bringing your creative vision to life.
Our mission is to reshape project management in the creative world by fostering teamwork and putting people first. Hence, creative project management. Because when teams feel supported, great work happens.
If you’re an artist or creative looking for solutions to manage your projects better, feel free to explore our project management product by clicking the link here.
Key Takeaways
Project management is a concept that can be translated into fictional pieces of work, such as games, as strategy plays a big part in games.
When there is a safe simulated space to practice project management, aspiring project managers learn how to take risks and navigate risks at the same time.
Games like this build character and skills for individuals who wish to dabble and improve their knowledge of project management.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What can I do with project management skills?
PM skills are not only tied to projects, but can also be utilised in daily life, managing your kitchen resources or budgeting your everyday spending.
What are the benefits of learning through play?
Playing games helps individuals try out possibilities, revise hypotheses, and discover challenges. It helps boost engagement, motivation and even knowledge retention,
Author Bio
From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learnt how to and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games, and her beloved Labrador Retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.
Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera
With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies like parodies of animated shows and plots for board games. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Now an advocate for mental health and effective project management for the creative industry. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.